Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon appear before the legatine court at Blackfriars, to testify to the validity or otherwise of their marriage. Catherine had previously been married to Henry's elder brother Arthur, and the couple had required a papal dispensation to marry in the first place, since marriage to a brother's widow was otherwise disallowed. Thus the question of marital validity depends in part on interrogating Catherine as to whether her marriage to Arthur was ever consummated, a humiliating process for the English queen.